Related papers: Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation
There is argument as to the extent to which there has been an increase over the past few decades in the frequency of the extremes of climatic parameters, such as temperature, storminess, precipitation, etc, an obvious point being that…
We discuss the problems of consensus and unity in science. The natural sciences seem to contrast with many other areas of endeavor in that a high level of consensus seems to exist in them. However, a careful analysis of the structure of…
The nature of the scientific method is controversial with claims that a single scientific method does not even exist. However the scientific method does exist. It is the building of logical and self consistent models to describe nature. The…
One of the critical emerging challenges in climate change communication is the prevalence of conspiracy theories. This paper discusses some of the major conspiracy theories related to climate change found in a large Twitter corpus. We use a…
The emergence of opinion polarization within human communities -- the phenomenon that individuals within a society tend to develop conflicting attitudes related to the greatest diversity of topics -- has been a focus of interest for…
The complexity of emergent wicked problems, such as climate change, culminates in a reformulation of how we think about society and mobilize scientists from various disciplines to seek solutions and perspectives on the problem. From an…
We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N = 3,367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of…
The Sun encompasses planet Earth, supplies the heat that warms it, and even shakes it. The United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumed that solar influence on our climate is limited to changes in solar irradiance…
It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
The global climate crisis poses new risks to humanity, and with them, new challenges to the practices of professional astronomy. Avoiding the more catastrophic consequences of global warming by more than 1.5 degrees requires an immediate…
Collective and individual action necessary to address climate change hinges on the public's understanding of the relevant scientific findings. In this study, we examine the use of scientific sources in the course of 14 years of public…
Decision-makers abhor uncertainty, and it is certainly true that the less there is of it the better. However, recognizing that uncertainty is part of the equation, particularly for deciding on environmental policy, is a prerequisite for…
Understanding the causes and consequences of, and devising countermeasures to, global warming is a profoundly complex problem. Network representations are sometimes the only way forward, and sometimes able to reduce the complexity of the…
Are some cosmologists trying to return human beings to the centre of the cosmos? In the view of some critics, the so-called "anthropic principle" is a desperate attempt to salvage a scrap of dignity for our species after a few centuries of…
We do several simple calculations and measurements in an effort to gain understanding of global warming and the carbon cycle. Some conclusions are interesting: (i) There has been global warming since the end of the "little ice age" around…
Although information theory resolves inconsistencies (known under the form of famous enigmas) of the traditional approach of thermostatistics, its place in the corresponding literature is not what it deserves. This article supports the idea…
Scientific collaboration is often perceived as a joint global process that involves researchers worldwide, regardless of their place of work and residence. Globalization of science, in this respect, implies that collaboration among…
The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject…
It has been claimed by others that observed temporal correlations of terrestrial cloud cover with `the cosmic ray intensity' are causal. The possibility arises, therefore, of a connection between cosmic rays and Global Warming. If true, the…